Divine or Money
It is to the Divine that all riches belong. It is the Divine who lends them to living beings, and it is to Him that they must naturally return.
- The Mother
How to Control Desire over Money?. 14
When Money Becomes a Hostile Force?. 17
End of Personal Property from the World. 19
Introduction
It is to the Divine that all riches belong. It is the Divine who lends them to living beings, and it is to Him that they must naturally return.
- The Mother, Words of the Mother, Vol. 15, page 53.
We must consider money as a part of these universal forces. Sri Aurobindo clearly says we need to have control over 3 things in our life: Money, Power, and Sex. I feel, if we control our desires for these 3 things, we can get the meaning and the real purpose of our life. In relation to money, we must neither reject it outright and lead an ascetic life or crave for it storing it with greed.
- Money is an absolute impersonal force spread at a universal level. It has no relation with anyone, no father, no mother, no creator, no bank or no company, or no Govt.
- Money is not something we possess, or which belongs to us ever.
- Money is a force we can handle and direct where it ought to go in order to do the most useful work.
- In this material world, for men, money is more sacred than the Divine’s Will.
Our current Education System and Society expect us to be successful through money, more money, wealth and more wealth. We are all part of that great money trap of adverse forces.
Today, everyone from PM/President of a country to the common man feels that good business is running this country. Business means monetary transaction. We are talking of Vikas or development, that is based only on monetary growth. Country’s growth is measured only in terms of venture capital or business turnover GDP or Jobs creation parameters or Stock Market indices etc. The whole world is running after this mindless search for money. Our external growth in infra, pharma, defense, agriculture, industry, education, is now called the real growth, real progress of a nation. Countries after countries are trying to become stronger and richer by working towards more prosperous financially.
But as per Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, the real strength of a nation is not the financial strength, but the spiritual strength of the nation. That is the true measure of a country’s progress. Today Spiritual Vikas is the need of the hour not the material Vikas. India, which was dreamt by the Mother to become the Spiritual Guru of the world should stop blindly imitate the West in becoming the material guru or material superpower of the world. India and Indians should never forget their rich past and their defined role in world creation.
Currently, the whole World is running under a bubble of money creation madness. Even after Corona type of Divine shock hits the entire globe, people have not yet become any conscious. People are still in their world of narrow egoistic fights, satisfying their mindless and senseless desires, greed and lust. Countries are still trying to run after monetary security first than Divine Security. The world is still ignoring this Divine shock, the Mahakali force in action without care or concern. They still feel a few chemical vaccines can save this entire world instead of the Supreme Divine. They still feel the financial security is the Priority 1, for all the people that all Govts must ensure for their respective citizens. There is such a nasty give and take business relationship between people and the Govt of the Day. People in the name of democracy are demanding all profits, all benefits, to be given at their doorsteps, otherwise, they are threatening these minions, a group of fixers or dealers who are running the real show in the name of governance. People assume Govt’s are more powerful than the Divine. Let’s seek everything from the Govts. All Govts. are blindly borrowing from a global Bank structure and giving it free to their citizens. The ignorant citizens demand more and more each time from the hapless rulers. Most of the Govts the top 10 Economies of the world are running on trillion dollars of debt. Common man on the streets is not aware of the nexus between Govt, Corporate houses riding on huge amount of money. At the same time Divine Force is compelling these corrupt business leaders either to hide or to declare themselves as bankrupt. The glamour of money slowly fizzle out with the Mahakali action through Corona or Tsunami or other means. The money bubble or the craze for wealth is slowly bursting all over the world.
Less effort is made by government of the world to spiritually unite all or uplift the consciousness of their citizens. Everyone from Govt to common man have become more greedy, and slave to money power and foolishly assume that only Money, Success and Wealth creation will save this world. The relationship between Govt and citizens is based on only greed and not on any real patriotism or real oneness.
At this outset, I will discuss about four aspects of money with respect to security, desire, delight and hostile forces.
Money and Security
Q. Between Money and Divine who can provide better security?
(Message for raising funds for Matrimandir)
Give your money to the Divine work and you will be richer than you would be by keeping it. — 1971
The Mother says we should immerse ourselves in Her alone. Take Her Refuge alone. There is no other hope left for us. We have to be Her True Ideal children. There is no other option left for us.
Only Security: Dissolve or immerse ourselves in the Mother
The Mother:
Just see. Look at me. I am here, come back in my new body, divine, transformed and glorious. And I am the same mother, still human. Do not worry. Do not be concerned about your own self, your progress and realisation, nor about others. I am here, look at me, gaze into me, enter into me whole) I merge into my being, lose yourself into my love, with your love. You will see all problems solved, everything done. Forget everything, forget the world. Remember me alone, be one with me, with my love.” [From Mother India, July 1977]
But question is are we forgetting the whole world and taking her refuge?
Are we merging ourselves in Her consciousness? Because That is the only Truth, Only Force, Only Ananda.
The Mother had made this following declaration on 21 March 1956:
The age of Capitalism and business is drawing to a close.
Real progress of a country is based on and measured only on spiritual progress and not on monetary progress.
If we read Mother’s following Dream, where She emphasised on the following point:
- For in this ideal place money would be no more the sovereign lord. Individual value would have greater importance than the value due to material wealth and social position.
Please note: No place of Money as becoming the Lord of our life in Mother’s Dream.
If we truly believe the Mother and Her Existence and Her Power, we can trust Her words, where She clearly mentioned that Her Dream will soon become a reality. Her dream is not a mere dream, it is not the type of our human dreams that is usually born from our vital and mental desires or ambition.
Mother’s Dream
- There should be somewhere upon earth a place that no nation could claim as its sole property, a place where all human beings of good will, sincere in their aspiration, could live freely as citizens of the world, obeying one single authority, that of the supreme Truth, a place of peace, concord, harmony, where all the fighting instincts of man would be used exclusively to conquer the causes of his sufferings and miseries, to surmount his weakness and ignorance, to triumph over his limitations and incapacities; a place where the needs of the spirit and the care for progress would get precedence over the satisfaction of desires and passions, the seeking for material pleasures and enjoyment.
- In this place, children would be able to grow and develop integrally without losing contact with their soul.
- Education would be given not with a view to passing examinations and getting certificates and posts but for enriching the existing faculties and bringing forth new ones.
- In this place titles and positions would be supplanted by opportunities to serve and organise.
- The needs of the body will be provided for equally in the case of each and everyone.
- In the general organisation intellectual, moral and spiritual superiority will find expression not in the enhancement of the pleasures and powers of life but in the increase of duties and responsibilities.
- Artistic beauty in all forms, painting, sculpture, music, literature, will be available equally to all, the opportunity to share in the joys they give being limited solely by each one’s capacities and not by social or financial position.
- For in this ideal place money would be no more the sovereign lord. Individual value would have greater importance than the value due to material wealth and social position.
- Work would not be there as the means for gaining one’s livelihood, it would be the means whereby to express oneself, develop one’s capacities and possibilities, while doing at the same time service to the whole group, which on its side, would provide for each one’s subsistence and for the field of his work. In brief it would be a place where the relations among human beings, usually based almost exclusively upon competition and strife, would be replaced by relations of emulation for doing better, for collaboration, relations of real brotherhood.
- The earth is certainly not ready to realise such an ideal, for mankind does not yet possess the necessary knowledge to understand and accept it nor the indispensable conscious force to execute it. That is why I call it a dream.
- Yet, this dream is on the way of becoming a reality. That is exactly what we are seeking to do at the Ashram of Sri Aurobindo on a small scale, in proportion to our modest means.
- The achievement is indeed far from being perfect but it is progressive; little by little we advance towards our goal, which, we hope, one day we shall be able to hold before the world as a practical and effective means of coming out of the present chaos in order to be born into a more true, more harmonious new life.
In the book The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo has clearly mentioned, there will be only reign of the spirit not the reign of money or property.
There has been the dream or a psychic prevision of a fulfilment exceeding the individual transformation, a new earth and heaven, a city of God, a divine descent upon earth, a reign of the spirit, a kingdom of God, not only within us but outside in a collective human life…
We are all mindlessly running after money and property, gold. Our entire saving is lost on giving EMIs, Insurance premiums to Banks. We do not have any guarantee if the Banks will exist tomorrow, we do not have any assurance if the Insurance Company will be bankrupt tomorrow or not. Still we trust the SBI or LIC, because we believe, tomorrow, if LIC collapses, Govt of the Day will save LIC. Govt saved Satyam company to save the image of the Company and the image of the country. I wonder how long Govts will be able to keep saving the employees of bankrupt companies or its citizens from corrupt companies, corrupt banks, corrupt hospitals?
Mother Declared Govt is also Temporary phenomenon.
The Mother: Governments, societies, kings, police, judges, institutions, churches, …laws, customs, armies are temporary necessities imposed on us for a few groups of centuries because God has concealed His face from us. When it appears to us again in its truth and beauty, then in that light they will vanish….
The anarchic state is the government of everyone by himself. “And it will be the perfect government when everyone is conscious of the inner Divine and obeys Him and Him alone. (The Mother’s Agenda)
If Govts are insecure, or unstable and temporary creations, how can we trust the Banking systems. But we firmly believe our Banks and Bank managers. We all park our money in the Bank lockers by paying hefty amount knowing fully well that if Locker is stolen or robbed, Banks will not be compensating us for any loss. Still we trust our banks, our LIC Policies. We invest hugely in building apartments or luxury apartments knowing fully well that a minor earthquake can create a biggest crack, a bankrupt company will compel us to sell the house for non payment of EMIs. We all go by faith or that extra bit of luck, that nothing will happen. We feel great about our banking system, our LICs, our Govts, our Judiciary, our Police system. We firmly believe that our corrupt Police System will nab the Corrupt Bankers, propped up by corrupt political class and bureaucracy, and bring them to justice in the Corrupt Judiciary system and we will get back our lost money in the bank.
Sri Aurobindo gives the perfect solution of this crisis:
We have to perfect our souls first rather than the Govt or society.
This erring race of human beings dreams always of perfecting their environment by the machinery of Government and society but it is only by the perfection of the soul within that the outer environment can be perfected. What thou art within, that outside ·thou shalt enjoy, no machinery can rescue thee from the
law of thy being. — — Sri Aurobindo
We are all immortal timeless souls. We should feel more secure about our soul’s timeless journey in this world. We should have more trust in the supramental immortality as mentioned by The Mother.
My Question is:
If we are immortal, why there is so much sense of Insecurity and FEAR of Death, Disease (Corona) or Decay?
Supramental immortality — It is an established fact, but few human beings have experienced it. — The Mother
By immortality is meant the consciousness which is beyond birth and death, beyond the chain of cause and effect, beyond all bondage and limitation, free, blissful, self-existent in conscious-being, the consciousness of the Lord, of the supreme Purusha, of Sachchidananda. — Sri Aurobindo
Immortality in its fundamental sense does not mean merely some kind of personal survival of the bodily death; we are immortal by the eternity of our self-existence without beginning or end, beyond the whole succession of physical births and deaths through which we pass, beyond the alternations of our existence in this and other worlds: the spirit’s timeless existence is the true immortality. — Sri Aurobindo
Money and Desire
The Mother asks a pertinent Question for all:
Do you want to increase your own earnings at the expense of the livelihood of some of your fellow-workers? You complain that you live in misery; and I tell you that you live in misery because you waste your money on drinking and smoking and because you waste your energy in sexual excess. All these — alcohol, tobacco and sexual excess — ruin your health.
True Need of a Soul:
As we are timeless souls, growing souls, the time and place of our soul’s birth depends on the true inner need of our being. We are not so many absolutely separate unrelated autonomous self-sufficient entities, each one coming and going as and when it chooses and likes: on the contrary, the souls form groups or families according to some secret affinity. The Mother says, to each one the Supreme Lord gives what he asks for. To one who loves money He gives money, to one who loves the Divine He gives the Divine Consciousness and ultimately He gives Himself.
All souls are the warriors, playmates, the beloved of the Lord. Our Souls’ true need is to get a conscious environment, where it will get a chance to grow within and be connected with the Divine, instead of the outer world. He has to lead the prakriti and become the representative of the Divine and torch bearer of the new race. Only Divine Mother can quench the thirst of a sincere soul and take him to the source of creation.
We similarly awakened souls need to join, collaborate, and try to live in a place where we can stay peacefully, without any competition, jealousy, hatred or ill will. We should not be slave to our desires or ego and can be able to devote ourselves more for leading a conscious life in line with the Mother. We should be able to manifest the Divine consciousness collectively on Earth.
Current Situation of our Souls:
In this material world, for us, money is more sacred than the Divine’s Will. Unfortunately, we are not able to provide the soul the right environment for its total growth. We are trapped by the family, society or county living in their ego, prestige, or desire. Like the ordinary mass, we all run after money. We destroy our soul’s growth by indulgence, or by egoistic desires.
The Mother says: Money is a thing you should have only when you are free from desire. Otherwise, all the money you have is like a curse on you. … Money does not bring happiness. … I repeat, it is not money that makes a man happy, but rather an inner balance of energy, good health and good feelings. …money is a force that must circulate and must not be a personal property. … Wealth should not be a personal property and should be at the disposal of the Divine for the welfare of all.
How can we overcome the Current Situation of Earth and our Society:
The Mother: Everyday things seem to become worse. In truth we feel more and more disgusted with the old rotting world, and are more and more convinced of the necessity of founding, somewhere out of the well-trodden tracks, a new centre of life in which a new and truer light can be manifested, a new world no longer based on selfish competitions and egoistic strife but on general and eager endeavours to promote the welfare, knowledge and progress of all — a society based on spiritual aspiration instead of lust for money and material power.
We have to create a society based on spiritual aspiration instead of lust for money and material power.
The ugliest part of human desire was:
When Ashram was going through financial difficulties, some Ashramites were demanding their basic necessities to be met. Mother gave the following reply:
The Mother: The Ashram is having financial difficulty, yet people ask for their pound of flesh. As students we used to fast for helping those who were victims of an earthquake or flood.
Unhappily the present difficulty is neither a flood nor a famine, nor a war, nor an earthquake nor a conflagration or any of those things which move the human sentiments and make them dominate for a while the material desires named “needs”.
Money difficulties generally make people dry and even bitter, if not rebellious. And I know of some people who are on the verge of losing their faith because I do not have all the money I need!
*
With respect to A Country’s Desire
If our goals and our Country’s goals are not spiritual but materialistic, it will be totally under adverse forces of falsehood and darkness. Country wants to become superpower through monetary power.
For many decades, all govts across the world are working towards reforms, and using money to get more money. They are taking money from one source to another, which is a very dangerous practice as The Mother says in the following quote:
The Mother says:
First of all, from the financial point of view, the principle on which our action is based is the following: money is not meant to make money. This idea that money must make money is a falsehood and a perversion.
For example, Govt is allowing LIC to invest in stock market, it earned 64 billion dollar in just few months. Not Indian Govt, all the Govts across the world have put their insurance companies’ money in Stock market, leading to risk.
However, everyone from Finance Market to common man is happy now as they feel country is progressing with borrowed money. All over the world the bureaucracy follows the same principle.
The Mother: It is a great mistake to believe that I would agree to the unselfish movement of some people only to satisfy the demands of those who remain selfish and full of desires. The time of egoistic greed is over; each one will have to share in the effort towards economy. 22 June 1940
As Sri Aurobindo says our vital forces have great influence over money. The Mother says, You see, when one thinks of money, one thinks of bank-notes or coins or some kind of wealth, some precious things. But this is only the physical expression of a force which may be handled by the vital and which, when possessed and controlled, almost automatically brings along these more material expressions of money. And that is a kind of power. It is a power of attracting certain very material vibrations, which has a capacity for utilisation that increases its strength — which is like the action of physical exercise, you see — it increases its strength through utilisation.
How to Control Desire over Money?
Therefore, it was like this, you see: this letter was written to someone who wanted to go out from here to collect money for Sri Aurobindo’s work, and this person had no means at all. So he began by saying to Sri Aurobindo, “But as I myself have no means, people will have no trust in me, and I won’t be able to get anything.” And Sri Aurobindo answered him something like this, that it is not the external force in its most material form which is necessary, it is the handling of the inner force which gives one control over money wherever it is: whether it is in public institutions or with individuals, one obtains control over it and one can, when it is necessary, attract by a certain movement what is needed*.
- The Mother
When money is missing it must be replaced by an immense effort of goodwill and organisation. It is that effort that I am asking for, a triumph over Tamas and lazy indifference.
I do not want anybody to give up but I want everyone to surpass himself.
In your personal use of money look on all you have or get or bring as the Mother’s. Make no demand but accept what you receive from her and use it for the purposes for which it is given to you. Be entirely selfless, entirely scrupulous, exact, careful in detail, a good trustee; always consider that it is her possessions and not your own that you are handling. On the other hand, what you receive for her, lay religiously before her; turn nothing to your own or anybody else’s purpose.
Money and Delight
Q. If Divine gives ultimate delight, should we stop earning for money?
We can earn money, but it should be only for Divine purpose. Otherwise, it is all meaningless attempt to hand over the money to hostile forces.
If we live in the Divine Consciousness, we will get ultimate Ananda, Bliss and Delight. We wont need any money, or building or jewellery to be happy. Others are temporary. A few moments with Divine are permanent moments with our soul, which will be transferred to the next birth. As we are lucky to get a human birth, which is passing through a unique hour of God.
The Mother says: This human hour, this earthly hour is the most beautiful of all the hours.
We all have to utilise these precious moments of Eternity and start living in that Spiritual Ananda.
Sri Aurobindo says in Life Divine:
A spiritual Ananda can flow into the body and inundate cell and tissue.
We have to prepare our souls for that paradise on Earth.
If paradise is our aim, we cannot get that through money. We can create that Paradise through three things: Beauty, Wonder and Quietude. These things surely create a paradise upon earth, and to realise this, sincere, true and pure aspiration and effort are essential.
We cannot get the delight by Money or jewellery. We can replace those outer things, with the Divine’s love or Divine Light, which is unreplaceable.
We have to start living in the fourth dimension. The Divine is present everywhere, our mental stupidity and vital desires prevent us from feeling the Divine. The Mother says: To be conscious of your psychic being, you must once be capable of feeling the fourth dimension, otherwise you cannot know what it is. Life begins with that. Otherwise one is in falsehood, in a muddle and in confusion and in darkness. The mind, mind, mind, mind! Otherwise, to be conscious of your own consciousness, you have to mentalise it. It is dreadful. dreadful!
We should be able to replace the old life, replace the old life style with a highly conscious lifestyle. The ideal Sadhaka in this kind is one who if required to live poorly can so live and no sense of want will affect him or interfere with the full inner play of the divine consciousness and if he is required to live richly, can so live and never for a moment fall into desire or attachment to his wealth or to the things that he uses or servitude to self-indulgence or a weak bondage to the habits that the possession of riches creates. The divine Will is all for him and the divine Ananda.
Money and Hostile Forces
Q. How to bring back the money from hostile forces?
All wealth belongs to the Divine and those who hold it are trustees, not possessors. It is with them today, tomorrow it may be elsewhere. All depends on the way they discharge their trust while it is with them, in what spirit, with what consciousness in their use of it, to what purpose.
Udar writes: But in India if you ask them to give to the Divine, they are very willing — for that people must be made conscious that India is not a country, a piece of land, but the Divine Mother, the one they worship as Bharat Mata.- Don’t ask them to give to you, but to give to the Mother. They will give, money will just pour in, in unbelievable quantities.
When Money Becomes a Hostile Force?
When we earn money, and keep it unused for our personal reasons, it becomes a hostile force for us. We become thief of that property or money if we keep the money unused or keep the possessed thing unused. If a thing does not become our true need, it will act as a negative force and badly impacts our consciousness. We must respect every material creation as those carry the Divine Consciousness or Force within. People forget their relationship for the sake of money power, it becomes a tremendous attraction which comes as a negative force.
We must channelize money not for becoming an intellectual giant or kind-hearted philanthropist. But these are all meaningless unless we make some progress towards Divine manifestation within ourselves, unless we utilise our money for the establishment of Divine Kingdom.
The moment we see a new Rs 2000 note, or a new golden color coin instead of being attracted towards it and keeping it as a museum item in our home, we must utilise them for Divine’s work. Divine’s work can include us, or for others or for this entire universe. But we must not keep any iota of ego, or pride, or vanity or any Asuric forces inside.
We must utilise money not for buying useless things, satisfying our materialistic instinct. It should be used only for the Divine manifestation. Then we can realise the true essence of money. Whole of our life we keep accumulating objects, objects, and all of a sudden we leave everything here even the physical. Only thing that is permanent that goes with us to our next life is Psychic being, the true Divine entity within us, we should utilise our energy, time, resources such as money only for the realisation of Psychic manifestation
many
The Mother says:
It is true that money is a force and a means, but it must never be allowed to become a ruler and a tyrant. January 1
There is also another and more simple way of getting out of trouble, it is to take refuge in the Divine’s love.
Q. How will work be organised and distributed in Auroville?
The Mother: “Money would no longer be the sovereign lord; individual worth would have a far greater importance than that of material wealth and social standing. There, work would not be a way to earn one’s living but a way to express oneself and to develop one’s capacities and possibilities while being of service to the community as a whole, which, for its own part, would provide for each individual’s subsistence and sphere of action.”
End of Personal Property from the World
The following Article clearly states Mother’s prophetic declaration about the end of the Personal/Private Property from the whole world. We are all hankering after money, money, and money, throughout our lives. It is better to mend our ways of living. We should start giving everything for the Divine to get the Absolute Divine Protection. Otherwise, we will have to meet catastrophic consequences in our lives.
Key Highlights of this Conversation with the Mother, which happened on 25 March 1970:
1. What could be called the “reign of money” is drawing to a close.
2. End of Personal Property — We have to declare end of our claim over personal property. We are not taking any property to the next birth. It is better to be kept aside.
3. The world based on business can’t be allowed to continue like this forever.
4. The Mother’s Power and Force has become greater and greater on enemies of the Divine, the money power.
5. No more justification to earn money for personal causes
6. No Divine sanction for personal needless expenses
7. Year 2070 — The Mother has declared it as the year when All Personal Properties will collapse.
8. A world Organisation will replace the current system of governance. Only people with world consciousness and global unity will rule the world.
9. Person should have no desires, no preferences, no attractions, no repulsions. We should have a perfect equality for everything and perfect sincerity.
THE END OF THE REIGN OF MONEY
The Mother
The following is a portion of a conversation of 25 March 1970, from the Agenda (Paris: lnstitut de Recherches Evolutives, 1981 ). It is published here with the permission of the Institut; the translation is by the editor of Collaboration.
Mother: It is still very difficult. Things are becoming more and more complicated, but simultaneously the power is becoming greater and greater, even astonishing. But for people who like to be in peace [laughing}, it’s bothersome! Do you have something? You haven’t brought anything, nothing to say?
Disciple: There’s a letter from the Marquis, that friend of mine. He asks for your help ….
Mother: To?
Disciple: To change his life and get rid of all his material and financial problems over there. Mother: I thought he was very rich.
Disciple: Yes, but he wants to get rid of everything. Mother: Well, let him give it to the Ashram! [Mother laughs.}
Disciple: He has a lot of capital invested in land, chateaux, etc., and he says he could leave it all in the hands of a financial organization and see what happens, or should he take care of it himself, liquidate everything, then come here?
Mother [after a silence]: If he comes, he has to come with money, because the situation here is critical. We spend three times more than we have, so … It’s a sort of constant miracle. And the expenses go on increasing.
D. [the disciple in charge of the dining room and supplies) told me this morning that he couldn’t go on. And it’s like that. And then the government increases the taxes tenfold-ten times more. Everything is like that. And in front of us there’s a vacuum. So I can’t take any more people, except those who are capable not only of providing for their needs, but also of helping the Ashram a little. It’s very, very, very difficult. [long silence] What could be called the “reign of money” is drawing to a close. But the transition period between the arrangement there has been in the world until now and the one there is going to be (in a few hundred years, say), that period is going to be very difficult. And it is. Industries have been the great means of making money-now that’s all over. The government takes all the profits. Or else, we had some small industries here and they were excused from taxes on condition they give 75%oftheirprofits to the Ashram-now they’ve changed their rules and it’s not 75% any more: it’s the whole thing.
Disciple, To the Ashram? You mean to the State?
Mother: No, no! They give everything to the State: but before, we had gotten those here in the Ashram excused from taxes on condition they give 75% to the Ashram; now the 75% has been changed to all. That is, all the industries here have to give all their profits to the Ashram or they’ll be taxed.
Disciple: Well, that’s not so bad!
Mother [laughs}: Yes, but it’s a sign of the times. For them it’s not bad because with me [laughing} there can be some accommodations! But with other organizations … Most people start an industry to earn their livelihood-they can’t now. They can’t now because personal expenses are not permitted. Although personal expenses “not permitted” has been since the beginning. I remember, a long time ago, my mother had started … I don’t know if it was a henhouse or something like that, because she wanted to increase her income a little, and … (this was perhaps 50 or 60 years ago), she was very plain and uncomplicated; she had opened her business and was selling hens, eggs, etc.; she spent the money herself and took care of the whole business. . . . And one fine day [laughing} , they asked her for her accounts! And they almost penalized her very severely because she had taken the money for her personal expenses-she never understood! … That really amused me. That goes back at least 50 years. You see, it all seems a strange attitude to me. Why do you work? Normally you work to earn your livelihood-well, it’s not legal. You should work, but the business isn’t supposed to be personal! You don’t have the right to take your expenses out of the business you’ve opened yourself! The world is of an unequaled stupidity. So naturally things can’t go on like this ….
Of course, the way they reckon is totally false (the government’s): they’re ruining the country more and more! And so they’re really in a critical situation. In fact it has been clear for a long time that all these taxes, these duties, all that is simply the ruin of the country, nothing else …. Almost all the industries in the North [ of India) are going to close down, almost all. So . . . · They do a lot of quite useless things. All that will disappear, but … I’m a little in touch with all that: they come to see me; everyone comes complaining, telling me the miserable state things are in: governments, individuals and everyone. And I see it: it’s getting … impossible. How to make a living? It’s impossible. Because money had been put as the basis-money so naturally people had tried to earn it. Now it’s impossible. You can’t earn money any more, and you can’t have money all the time unless you earn some, so what can you do?
-Everything has to be changed. In Russia, they tried to make the government be responsible, but it … [laughing} it happened that all those who were in the government were lining their pockets and there was misery everywhere. So, since they don’t have much imagination, they want to go back to the old way of doing. But that’s not the way: we have to go a little further still. To divide the earth into a lot of little pieces, and set each piece against the other, or else …
A world organization is needed. And through whom? It would take at least people with a world consciousness! [Mother laughs.} Otherwise it won’t work. So … there’s going to be a hundred very difficult years, very difficult. Perhaps afterwards we’ll come to something …. [silence} Whatthat man [the Marquis) wrote you, there are many like that! Many have written the same thing: people from every country. They’re weary of the way things are. They say, “No more personal property!” But they don’t have much imagination, so they haven’t yet found what to do. [silence}
Disciple: A system of “coupons for hours of work,” with a scale for the quality or degree of the work you do. Mother: Where is that practiced?
Disciple: I don’t know, in my imagination! [In fact, such a system has been employed for a number of years in various American intentional communities, most notably those inspired by the teachings of the behaviorist B.F. Skinner. Translator.]
Mother: Oh, it’s you! Indeed, that’s very good! Disciple: Something based on work.
Mother: Yes. Disciple: Coupons for hours of work. So you can say that the coupon of a coolie is worth one, and the coupon of an engineer is worth five, for example, that’s all.
Mother: A whole organization would have to be developed. There would have to be … There has to be something like that in Auroville.
Disciple: Based on work.
Mother: Yes, an activity. You can define work as an activity that has a collective utility, not egoistic. [silence} The difficulty is the appraisal of the value of the work. You see, you have to have a very broad vision for that. The nice thing about money is that is was mechanical …. But that other system can’t quite become like that, so … But for example, the idea is that those who live in Auroville won’t have money-there’s no circulation of money -but as for eating, for example, everyone has the right naturally to eat …. From a practical standpoint, we had conceived of the possibility of every possible food according to the taste or need of each one (for example, with vegetarian kitchens, nonvegetarian kitchens, diet kitchens, etc.), and those who want to receive food from them should do something in exchange. In other words, to work, or … it’s difficult to organize practically, quite practically …. You see, we had envisioned a lot of land around the city so as to be able to do large-scale agriculture for the consumption of the city. But for the cultivation of those lands at the moment we need money, or else materials. I have to face the problem in every detail now, and it’s not easy! There are some who understand. You see, the idea is that in Auroville there won’t be any customs or taxes and that Aurovilians won’t have any personal property. On paper, that’s all very well, but when it comes to doing it practically … And the problem is always the same, the responsibility should be given to those who have a … universal consciousness, it means someone incapable of governing-we see what governments are like, it’s dreadful! [long silence/ There is also a psychological point: something very interesting is that material needs diminish in proportion to the spiritual consciousness. As Sri Aurobindo said, not as a result of asceticism, but the attention, the focus of the being changes its domain …. It’s quite clear that only material things please the purely material being; and the interest of all who live in the emotional being and the outer mind is turned towards … things of beauty, for example: they need to be surrounded by beautiful things and want to use lovely things. That now seems to be the human summit, but it’s quite … what you could call a “middle region” [gesture barely above the ground}, it’s not at all a higher region. Because of the way the world is organized, people who don’t need esthetics return to a very primitive life-that’s no good. The place of living … where life unfolds shouldn’t be an individual thing, but a surrounding beauty stemming naturally from a certain degree of development. Now, the way things are organized, you have to be rich to be able to be surrounded by beautiful things, and that’s a source of imbalance because wealth generally goes with a quite average degree of consciousness, sometimes even mediocre. So everywhere there is imbalance and disorder. There should be … a place of beauty — -a place of beauty where you can live only if you’re at a certain level of consciousness. And it should not be other people who decide it, but it should be decided very spontaneously, naturally. But how can this be done? … This sort of question is starting to arise in Auroville, so things are getting very interesting. Naturally the material means are very limited, but that too is pan of the problem to be solved. [long silence}
The conditions for organizing — -for being an organizer (it’s not “governing,” it’s organizing)-the conditions for being an organizer should be these: no desires, no preferences, no attractions, no repulsions a perfect equality for everything. And sincerity, of course, but that goes without saying: whenever insincerity comes in, poison comes in at the same time. And only those who are themselves in that condition are capable of discerning if someone else is or not. Whereas, now, all human organizations are based on the visible fact, which is falsehood, public opinion, which is another falsehood, and the moral sense, which is a third falsehood! {Mother laughs.} * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Suggestion for a nation from falling into Hostile force of Money
Udar: Mother told me on another occasion what would be a spiritually guided government and what it would do. The first thing this government would do is to declare India a free country, free of many regulations. No passport, no visa; anybody can come, anybody can go. No import/export restriction; anything can come in and go out.
Let things come in and out freely. All these duty restrictions are hampering the trade. People are afraid of such freedom but it will be a marvellous thing and people will benefit from it. Even if wrong people come in, what does it matter? Such a spiritually guided government will stamp out the wrong movements automatically
We should not live for competition
The Mother: Earth needs a place where men can live away from national rivalries, social conventions, self-contradictory moralities and contending religions, a place where human beings, free from all slavery of the past, can devote themselves wholly to the discovery and practice of the divine consciousness that is seeking to manifest itself. Auroville wants to be this place and offers itself to all who aspire to live the Truth of tomorrow.
Conclusion:
Money is meant to increase the wealth, the prosperity and the productiveness of a group, a country or, better, of the whole earth. Money is a means, a force, a power, and not an end in itself. And like all forces and all powers, it is by movement and circulation that it grows and increases its power, not by accumulation and stagnation.
What we are attempting here is to prove to the world, by giving it a concrete example, that by inner psychological realization and outer organisation a world can be created where most of the causes of human misery will be abolished.
If mankind could but see though in a glimpse of fleeting experience what infinite enjoyments, what perfect forces, what luminous reaches of spontaneous knowledge, what wide calms of our being lie waiting for us in the tracts which our animal evolution has not yet conquered, they would leave all & never rest till they had gained these treasures. But the way is narrow, the doors are hard to force, and fear, distrust & scepticism are there, sentinels of Nature, to forbid the turning away of our feet from her ordinary pastures.
- Sri Aurobindo (CWSA 12, p.423).
